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HOLLINGSWORTH 



MODEM POETBY. 



A CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY 



ESSAY 



GEORGE SEXTON, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.G.S., F.E.S., &c, 



EDITOR OF II OLLINGS WORTH'S WORKS. 



" Pictoribus atque poetis 
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit sequa potestas." 

Authors are partial to their wit 'tis true, 

But are not Critics to their judgment too?"— Pope. 



" There is such a thing" as literary fashion, and prose and verse have 
been regulated by the same caprice that cuts our coats and cocks our 
hats." — Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature. 



LONDON: 
WILLIAM FREEMAN, 3 QUEEN'S HE^ 
PATERNOSTER ROW. 




1858. 






\V. M. Watts, Ciwn Court, Temple Bar. 



i to 



TO THE 

EIGHT HON. BENJAMIN DISRAELI, M.P., 

THE MAN WHO COMBINES IN HIMSELF 
THE HIGHEST LITERARY GENIUS 

WITH THE 

TALENTS OF A GREAT STATESMAN, 

THE 

FOLLOWING ESSAY 

IS HUMBLY AND RESPECTFULLY 

DEDICATED 

BY ONE OF HIS WARMEST ADMIRERS, 

THE AUTHOR. 



PKEFACE. 



The greater portion of the following Essay was composed 
for the purpose of being read before the Literary Branch of 
the St. James' Discussion Society. It being afterwards thought 
advisable to have it published, I considerably extended it, 
adding several quotations from Hollingsworth's Poems ; and 
hence i.ts present form. The object had in view has been to 
explain some of the peculiarities of a-Poet, who although but 
little known at present, bids fair hereafter to occupy a pro- 
minent position in British Literature. This was all the more 
necessary as most of his critics had completely misunderstood 
him. Whether I have succeeded in my task, must be left for 
the reader to judge. 

GEORGE SEXTON. 

London, 

September 1, 1858. 



HOLLINGSWORTH, ETC, 



AN ESSAY. 



It has been the good fortune of but very few poets to awake 
and find themselves famous. Those who have done so form a 
very rare exception to the general rule. The most have had to 
climb the high craggy steep that leads to immortality. Many 
have done this but to glory in their laurels for a day ; and then, 
wearied and worn out, to sink into their last resting-place. 
Others, despairing of ever reaching the goal, have in the spring 
or summer of their lives died exhausted in the ascent. But 
with them the world has sympathised ; and, pitying their 
failures and sorrows, freely bestowed upon them when dead 
the glory which' was grudged them whilst living. As was said 
of Homer — 

" Seven cities contend for Homer dead, 
Through which the living Homer begged his bread.'' 

The very death of some men seems to have been necessary to 
make them known to fame. What was Chatterton before his 
melancholy death?— What, Kirke White?— What, Keats?— 
What, even Shelley ? All but the latter died despairing of 
fame ; and no wonder, after the cruel reception the world 
gave them. The grave closed over them ; their epitaphs were 
inscribed upon their tombs; and then — not till then — were 
they recognised as " men of genius." Man is a truly feeling 
creature where his sympathies cost him nothing. If another 
Chatterton, begging, entered our doors with starvation in his 
face, we should recommend industry and perseverance; we 
should remind him of our own struggles, our large families, 
poor relatives; and treat him exactly as his predecessor of the 



eighteenth century had been treated by the hard-hearted con- 
temporaries of that period. But sympathy for a dead Chatterton 
is a very different thing. He cannot again return to life with all 
those faults and failings which made him disagreeable or ridicu- 
lous: he raises neither our bile nor our envy, nor does he touch 
either our pride or our pockets. Then comes real sympathy ; 
and with it, very often, extravagant praise. While reading the 
works of the afore-mentioned men of genius, we never lose 
sight of their melancholy history. Whilst we are admiring 
the poet, we are unconsciously sympathising with the man. 
The tragic romance of their lives adorns their verses : their 
sufferings have set their songs to sad enchanting music. Many 
passages, even in their best works, we should bitterly ridicule, 
did the memory of their afflictions not forbid us to be sarcastic. 
We kindly pass over their blemishes, to look for their beau- 
ties ; and thus frequently worship the dead, where we should 
not hesitate to bury or crucify the living. 

So sad, is the history of our literature ! Its list of 
unfortunate Poets is longer than that of all Continental 
Europe. This is so true, that it is worthy of the inquiry : what 
is its cause ? Is it in our English climate, education, or 
institutions ? We had already a long list of those who were 
accurately described by Shelley : 

" Most wretched men 
Are cradled into poetry by wrong : 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song." 

Now, we may add another. With their names will henceforth 
be associated that of Alfred Johnstone Hollingsworth. He, 
like some of them, passed through life unnoticed and un- 
known ; but now that he is dead, the world condescends to 
inquire : " Who was this unfortunate being ? " His history 
has already been told by most of our leading journals. The 
John Bull of the 6th September, 1856, gives it as follows- — 

" A singular biography of the author, by an anonymous 
friend or enemy, for the narrative makes him appear in either 
relation, is prefixed to a volume of Poems, of which the greater 
portion is occupied by "Childe Erconwold, a Spell of Love 
and War,' incident during the Norman Conquest. The 



biography is sadly interesting. Since the days of Savage, 
perhaps, there has not been such an exhibition of the effect 
produced upon genius by the stain of illegitimacy, and the 
punishment by society of the son for the errors of the 
parent. Mr. Hollingsworth, it appears, had no title to 
that name ; and was kept in ignorance of the stigma attached 
to his birth, until, falling in love, he was compelled to seek in- 
formation relative to himself, in order to gain access to the 
family of his enchantress. Upon application to his tutor, the 
subsequently nameless biographer, that gentleman acted with 
such utter want of judgment, as could only be paralleled by 
the heartlessness of the lady's parents. A rupture ensued 
forthwith between all parties, and poor Mr. Hollingsworth, an 
" anybody," who, it seemed, loved with the intense sincerity 
of a poetical temperament, departed from the country of his 
disappointment a broken-spirited man. Henceforth, like a 
second Childe Harold, or Cain, he became literally a 
wanderer on the face of the earth, travelled into various 
countries, and studied the language and literature of a host of 
nations. During his peregrinations, he composed many poetical 
works. Some of his poems are framed upon the model of the 
Erse ballads, are quaint and pathetic in their household ver- 
nacular, and abound in Anglo-Saxon expressions and allusions: 
the author having been completely a master in that, as in 
many other languages. Indeed, he appears to have been a 
second Mezzofanti. His end was in sad consistency with his 
painful career : from one spot of blighted affection, all his 
course was a .long avenue of aimless dejection, and we have 
never read so complete an instance of a man watching the 
growth of his grey hairs with pleasure, and longing for the 
end of the scene. When yet but thirty-five, " he had lost all 
youthfulness, and become a pale, sorrowful-looking man. 
Notwithstanding traces of early beauty, he appeared ten 
years older than he was His general appearance was that of 
a man who had grown old before his time ; — of one whose 
body was always on the rack of his mind." As might be 
expected, the finest passages of the volume before us are those 



10 

between Ercon and Melitha ; where the thorough appreciation 
of a loving girl's tenderness is exquisitely portrayed. Doubt- 
less his own sufferings attuned this Poet's lyre, like Anacreon's, 
to the melody of love. All readers will peruse this portion of 
the work with the same admiring melancholy as that with 
which we watch the tempered grandeur of the setting sun. 
After having taken his passage to America ( to see,' as he 
said, ' the falls of Niagara,' he fell a victim to the cholera, on 
board the Isaac Wright ; though, in the fearful mortality 
which happened on this fated vessel, no tidings could be 
obtained as to any particulars of his death until an unclaimed 
portmanteau and carpet-bag turned up. Moreover, even the 
very cause of this volume's publication was an advertisement 
inserted in the Times by a casual friend ! Such is the fate of 
genius! — tossed in this world between the injustice which 
punishes misfortune, and the heartless ignorance which crushes 
feeling ! " 

What can be added to this ? With painful brevity it tells 
the worst that is contained in the memoir prefixed to the only 
volume of his works at present published. This biography 
itself is a mere sketch. It was wilfully intended to be no 
more. The writer of it carefully avoids all that is not absolutely 
necessary to be stated ; and, to shield himself and others, gives 
us but the bare surface of Hollingsworth's history. The biogra- 
pher knew well that by detailing and particularizing, he must 
soon have committed himself, and disclosed secrets which he 
was bound not to divulge. For the present then, we must be 
satisfied with this morsel of biography. Time unveils all. 
When the offenders shall have passed away' with the offended, 
the rest must come to light. So much "en passant" for the 
life of Hollmgsworth. 

In this essay we have to deal with the Poet rather than 
with the man; to explain his literary progress; to relate 
the incidents which influenced it; and to shew, as far as 
possible, by a reference to his note-books, diary, and MSS., 
what must have been the principal articles of his poetical 
creed. That he bound himself strictly to some particular 



11 

laws of his own, there cannot be the least doubt. There is 
throughout his writings unquestionable proof of this. For 
my own part I must dissent entirely from his biographer, when 
he tells us that Hollingsworth never intended his poems to be 
published in their present state. Nor can I at all agree with 
his tutor, and others of his critics, who consider his many 
deviations from the rules of their beau-ideal of Poetry, to be the 
result of care and slovenliness. Those deviations are every- 
where too studiously introduced, to have been caused by care- 
lessness. It may be easily shewn that Hollingsworth formed a 
theory ; and, in defiance of existing schools, endeavoured to 
found one after his own heart. To this he referred when he 
wrote — 

I care nought for what wigged Learning- say ; — 

For Latin Doctor's frown, or critic's dart. 

If I should die not with my fleeting day, 

I'd live in every good old woman's heart ; — 

Be known to John the Boots, to Poll the nurse, 

And judged by loving maidens of my land : 

Then, down with Mystics ! Mine shall be the verse 

That men may study ; children, understand. 

His reasons for not publishing should not have been so 
mysterious to his reverend tutor, since they are clearly given 
in the following lines : — 

" I too have sinn'd in verse, — have chisell'd rhymes ; 

But see this age praise high its balderdash ; 

And call ' Sublime !' what ne'er was aught but trash : 

So, leave my books to worms or better times. 

They're in my trunk : where wits or mice may feed. 

When Holl is dead, up, Critics ! and condemn. 

Some friend may find — nay, haply, publish them ; 

And take unto himself all praise and meed. 

They'll be no worse, if so, for coming late. 

And I shall then have kept my peace of mind ; — 

Have lived among the lowliest of my kind 

Far from that little world men call, The great" 

To pass on, however, to the style of Hollingsworth. He 
seems to have looked back to the Ancients, to have reviewed 
the Moderns, and at last have sighed, " There is nothing new 



12 

under the sun ! " He beheld the Poets of our own day mis- 
taking the wildly singular for the original. He saw the Ame- 
ricans, by striving to over-top us in every thing, produce what 
we should long ago have originated, had it been worth the pro- 
duction. He felt that such rhyme writers as Longfellow and 
Martin Tupper, by drilling our English muse to dance to the 
tune of the Latin Hexameter, or to the harum-scarum prose of 
" Hiawatha," were sacrificing poetry at the shrine of a morbid 
fashion. He found the author of Proverbial Philosophy — or 
Proverbial Platitudes —egotistically exclaiming.* — 

" Many thoughts, many thoughts ; who can catch them all 1 
The best are ever swiftest winged, the duller lag behind ; 
For, behold in these vast themes my mind is as a forest in the West, 
And flocking pigeons come in clouds, and bend the groaning branches." 

He looked through the book for some of these thoughts 
which came in flocks like pigeons ; but, alas ! they had winged 
their flight in some other direction, for here not one could be 
found. He calmly meditated on such language as the follow- 
ing:— 

u By the shore of Gitche Gumee, . 

By the shining Big-Sea Water, 

At the doorway of his wig- warn, 

In the pleasant summer morning, 

Hiawatha stood and waited." 

He saw our Lakers whine over buttercups and find in them 

" Thoughts which he too deep for tears." 

He heard them exclaiming : — 

" And 'tis my faith, that every flower 
Enjoys the air it breathes." 

He saw our Spasmodics spit fire in the wild ravings of their 
moon-gazing Festuses ; and their chief describe a Poet, evi- 
dently a Spasmodic, thus : — ■ 

" All things talked thoughts to him ? The sea went mad, 
And the wind whined, as 'twere in pain, to shew 
Each one his meaning ; and the awful sun, 
Thunder'd his thoughts into him." 



13 

Their gentle, loving Lucifers, too, preach like mad meta- < 
physicians, and tell us — 

u God hath no attributes, unless To Be, 
Be one : 'twould mix Him with the things He hath made." 

Surely, thought Hollingsworth, this is frightful — almost blas- 
phemous — twaddle, and can never be looked upon as origi- 
nality. 

" Oh, ye shades 
Of Pope and Dry den, are ye come to this P — 

brouo-ht into communion with buttercup -gatherers, Hottentots, 
and gentlemanly demons. It is so difficult, he thought, in this 
wonder-teeming age to rise above the level of our fellows. In 
aiming at the original, we overshoot the mark, and hit the 
grotesque and the singularly ridiculous. The so-called 
geniuses of our day, by putting on the monkey's tail, may 
certainly appear different from their grandfathers, but they 
are none the more original, and none the more great. 

Despising such originality, and too proud to be a copyist, 
Hollingsworth ceased to write verses, and gave his mind to 
philology. But this course of procedure was doomed to be 
of short duration. A chance circumstance lead him accidently 
into a track which he had so long fruitlessly endeavoured to 
discover. It happened, as his diary informs us, that one day, 
while in Brussels, he sauntered into the Royal Library. His 
eye chanced to fall upon a small English-looking volume, 
which lay open on the library-table. He took it up. It was 
the Anglo-Saxon old epic, Beowull, with Kemble's translation. 
He sat down, and gazing on its Gothic characters forgot 
" Belgium's capital " and all around him. His curiosity thus 
excited, he determined upon learning the noble old language 
of our glorious King Alfred. To this contract with himself, 
he remained faithful during his subsequent wanderings ; — 
in noisy hotels, in the din and clamour of city life, 
amidst the bustle of travelling, the charms of Paris, and the 
voluptuousness of Spain, he still remained true to his purpose. 
Nothing could allure him from his somewhat monkish com- 



14 

panion. After many years of study, his mind became so 
imbued with all that was Anglo-Saxon, that he lived but in 
the England of the eighth century : — forgot our mechanical, 
railway, telegraphic, Great Britain of the present time, to 
ponder on the monkish but heroic times of Edmund Ironsides 
and Harold. So deeply was his mind coloured with Anglo- 
Saxonism — if I may coin a word — that he thought and dreamed 
in the language of those bygone heroes. But, while he was 
thus living in the past, and dead to the present, a circumstance 
occurred which changed his whole character. To drag him 
out of his old world, Destiny had to raise a mighty spirit. 
What was this ? Why, a spirit, the influence of which most 
of us have felt, in the form of a young English lady. In other 
words, he became subject to that passion or temporary madness 
in man which makes some particular woman appear divine. 
He flung aside antiquities. The fire which had smouldered 
in him during his wandering book-life now suddenly burst, 
and became the raging Vesuvius of his soul. The " fayre 
ladie " had suddenly transformed the musty antiquary into 
the fiery lover. Then it was that he became a Poet, and felt 
the truth of Shakspeare's lines : — 

" Never durst poet touch a pen to write, 
Until his ink were temper' d with love's sighs. 
then his lines would ravage savage ears, 
And plant in tyrants mild humility. ' 
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive : 
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire ; 
They are the books, the arts, the academies, 
That shew, contain, and nourish all the world." 

The dead language so long studied — now quickened, as it 
were, by this passion — became in him a living tongue. Into 
it he poured the love-yearnings of his fiery spirit ; giving that 
forgotten speech new life, making it yield .to rhyme, and to 
all the laws of modern versification. One of his Anglo-Saxon 
MSS. comprises a whole Dramatic Poem, in almost every 
kind of modern verse. Others are somewhat smaller pro- 
ductions; some, simply translations. Curious it is to see, 



15 

amongst the latter, Richard's " Now is the winter of our 
discontent," §c. — Milton's "Satan's Address," — Schiller's 
"Hector," — part of Byron's "Fare thee well," in the lan- 
guage of Yenerable Bede and Alfred the Great.* 

In a review of the first edition of Hollingsworth's Works, in 
"The Critic," of December 1st, 1856, a kind of comparison 
was made between him and Chatterton, to the disparagement 
of the former. The remark made was as follows : — referring 
to the somewhat mysterious biography, the reviewer proceeds : 
" We have no desire to lift the veil from this concealed per- 
sonage, the less so because the subject of it is really not a man 
of mark. If a Chatterton were the subject, then every fact 
in his history would have its weighty interest." Now, though 
comparisons are said to be odious, and it may be somewhat 
of a digression, we may inquire here, how does Hollingsworth 
appear compared with 

" That marvellous boy, 
That sleepless soul, who perished in his pride ?" 

Firstly, then, Chatterton chose Old English : which was no 
more than his own language in an ancient dress : having the 
same words slightly changed, the same grammar, the same 
construction. He had not to deal with another language, but 
merely with another form of his own. His most difficult task 
was no more than to put modern words into their Old-English 
coat — to give them the periwig of antiquity. After a little 
reading. of old writers, what witchcraft would there be in 
this ?— in writing, for instance, Wickednesse for Wickedness — 
Chivalrie for Chivalry ; and so forth, according to a few general 
rules ? He required but to write his verses first in English, 
and then translate them into this obsolete and antiquated 
form. 

The most wonderful fact connected with Chatterton was, 
that all this was done, for the first time, by a youth of seven- 
teen, who shortly afterwards poisoned himself. He performed 
here one of the fine tricks of Genius, the greatest beauty of 

* See Appendix. 



16 

which consists in their having been done ; and in our knowing 
that they, therefore, can be done. Who cares to see them 
done twice? Were a youth of our day to do Chatterton's 
" trick " even better than he did, it would be flat and stale, 
because it had been done before; and the presumptuous 
imitator would be scouted. " The Bristol Boy," we have 
seen, then, dealt not with another language, but merely with 
another form of his own. The following lines of old Sir 
Thomas More will shew a similar form or stage of our lan- 
guage :— 

" Without my fauour there is nothyng wonne. 

Many a matter haue I brought at last 

To good conclusion that fondly was begonne. 

And many a purpose, bounden sure and fast 

With wise prouision, I have overcast. 

Without good happe there may no wit suffise. 

Better is to be fortunate than wyse." 

But Hollingsworth wrote poems in a dead language, which 
in construction and grammar is as different from his own — and 
equally as difficult to deal with — as Latin or Modern German. 
To compare it with the above quotation we may take the fol- 
lowing lines : — 

" Hu ne eart J>u se mon J?e on minre scole waere afed and gelsered. 
Ac hwonon wurde J?ii mid Jjissum woruld sorgum J? us swifce geswenced. 
Buton ic wat J?set Jju hsefst J?ara W8eJ?na to hrafce forgiten J?e ic ]?e ser 
sealde." 

He had, by long and intense study, to convert it apparently 
into a living language : till he made it do what it had never 
done before— flow to modern rhyme and metre. This, too, it 
may be said, was no more than one of those " fine tricks." 
Certainly. But it was far more difficult than Chatterton's, 
and will, like his, be never again attempted. 

Secondly, Chatterton had all the Old-English literature 
for his resources. Hollingsworth had but fragments of Anglo- 
Saxon. He had no English- Anglo- Saxon Dictionary. It did 
not, and does not exist. There is but an Anglo-Saxon-English. 
This he must have transferred to his memory, or have made 



17 

an English-Anglo- Saxon, for, otherwise, he could no more have 
found the exact words which he wanted, than an Englishman, 
learning French, could find any particular French word by 
searching through a French-English Dictionary. Chatterton 
had no* difficulty of this kind ; — no difficulty at all in getting 
at the words, modes of expression, phrases, and idioms : they 
were all before him in the works of the old writers ; and, if 
not there, they were, in another form, in his own language. 

Thirdly, Chatterton had all the old Poets and Dramatists 
for models. Of their poems and dramas, he had no more to do 
than to produce a fine imitation. Hollings worth found nothing 
to copy: he had no models — no Poets, — for of such, in our 
sense of the word, there is none in Anglo-Saxon. He was, 
therefore, superior to Chatterton in this too, — that he did not 
imitate, but created ; that he was the beginning and the end, 
the root and the trunk of all that may be called Anglo- 
Saxon Poetry in modern versification. Chatterton, on the 
contrary, did no more than imitate — than graft another branch 
upon an old withered tree which long before his day had been 
planted. This comparison, it will be said, deals severely with 
the marvellous boy. It must be borne in mind, however, that 
it has been provoked by the assertions of " The Critic." 
. To return, however, from this digression, we come at once 
to the style of Hollingsworth. We have seen him first turning 
away in disgust from our modern schools; — despairing of 
originality, give up Poetry, and devote himself to Anglo- 
Saxon. We have beheld him, driven from his studies, become 
a hot-brained lover ; — thereupon, a Poet in that dead language. 
We now find him, after all this — after the lapse of several 
years — return to his mother English : and commence poetising 
in this melancholy strain: — 

I long have ceased to live below ; 
Or, lived but for to moan and pine. 
No wife, no child, no friend, is here ; 
Ah ! nothing in the wide world more 
Than this poor harp and memory dear, 
To tell of blissful days of yore. 

What a change study and passion had wrought in him ! He 



18 

had become another man — a modern monkish, love-sick 
Abelard, consoling himself with — 



What is most loved, we fear so much to lose, 
That even its very having is a care. 
But nought can reave the Poet of his Muse, 
Whatever want and sorrows he may bear. 
In this true friend, I set my hope and trust ; 
Since all that was most dear, is false or dust! — 

He now devoted his time to writing what may be called, Anglo- 
Saxon English. Such we find in his Childe Erconwold. It is 
English, but not the English of other Poets ; it is peculiarly 
his own. The following quotations may give a slight idea of 
the distinguishing characteristics of his language : — 

To love thy wife, — all those of thy dear mind ; 
To praise thy friend ;— help him who help thee most: 
These are the beggar-virtues of mankind, 
Which even the lowest savages can boast. 

But thou, proud Byron, still wilt live and please ; — 
With all thy faults, with all thy shameful wit, 
With all that I too wish had ne'er been writ, 
Still have the soul-unlocking " golden keys ; " — 
Wilt still be found in that far-looming age 
A great heart-mover in Old England's page. 

Where 's now the laugh ? — the step so quick and light ? — 
The gleeful eye 1 — the heart of late so boon ? 
Ah, that one ill hour thus can wreck or blight!— 
That aught so fair should droop so soon ! 

That originality which he had sighed for, had now become 
his by long study, — by the ravings of passion — and the force of 
circumstances. From an analysis of his style it would appear 
to be based upon the following facts : — 

Firstly, Never to make a Saxon speak what is not of 
Germanic origin. Where modern English failed, he used the 
obsolete, as the last of the above quotations shews; or he 
coined from Anglo-Saxon : 

" 'Tis in the team of things that nought should last,— 
Young go with young, and old ones heforcast." 



19 

Our Norman and Latin-English, that is, the English of the 
present day, he seems to have had intense hatred for ; sarcasti- 
cally putting it into the mouth of his petticoated monks, — 
learned men — and effeminate Normans. These alone he allowed 
to speak it. 

Secondly, That every hero should have his own peculiar 
metre, suited to his age, temperament, and character. We 
hear the old monk Wilfrid speak in the calm philosophical 
language of the student — 

Lost gold is found : lost hours are lost for aye. 
Let time, young* man, be deem'd thy dearest store. 
Life is an inn where thou wilt dwell a day ; — 
Go soon the long* old road, and come no more. 

Young fiery Erconwold and angry Yolmar, employ the quick 

and abruptly passionate language — 

" She's a beau | ty, par Gamm ! | — too good | for those Bret | on boors ! 

The phlegmatic Gerboiid drawls his words out, as though he 
counted them ; 

" Would'st have them here 1 Well ;— well, then, I will see." 

The gentle Melitha sighs the soft feminine language of love — 

" Thus let our sin 
Teach us to rue ; and rue, to love our kin." 

" The sun ne'er shone o'er aught so dear as he ! " 

While Yolmar gabbles in rapid anapaests and dactyles, Gerboiid 
generally drawls in slow spondees. All this is as in Nature. 
Though we all speak English, each has his own individual 
English, — English as peculiar to him, as his walk, his tone of 
voice, his features and expression of countenance. Hollings- 
worth imitated this in verse ; and he is the only Poet that 
has done so. He would not, like Milton, have made Satan 
and Gabriel — angels and devils speak in the same metre. He 
would have given to Othello and Juliet very different poetical 
languages. All Shakspeare's heroes speak in the same 
Iambics, only varied now and then by a spondee or a 
Trochee. But where the great master defcends to prose, he 



20 

generally gives to each speaker a peculiar language. This is 
done in our best novels. Hollingsworth accomplished it in verse. 
The following extract will explain this. It is from the part 
where Melitha pleads to her husband Gerboud, for the deli- 
verance of her lost lover. Every speaker, it will be seen, has 
his own peculiar language, though all speak in five-feeted 
verse : — 

" Ger. I never heard, LETicHE so follow'd thee 1 
Vol. It does, sire,— | it does : | it al | ways fol | lows me. | 
Mel. Redeem him from such hard death ! 0, my lord ! 
Our time is as a gust that rushes by ; 
But it will dure in England's Chronicle : 
Where other ages— races yet unborn 
Will read of all ; — hoot l Shame V at these sad days ; — 
Tell how this land was rack'd and sorrow- smitten ! 
Then let it be that, on the woe-dark page, 
Thy good deeds shine ; — that there, bright gilded, stand— 
' Gerboud did well in our poor Saxonland !' 
Ger. We '11 think— I cannot trow that Erc is there, — 
Vol. I'll take my oath on't, sire ! My head on that ! 
Mel. Why should I bid so ? Art not thou my lord ? 
All hopes of him are blighted ! — lost for aye ! 
Dead is dear Ercon! — dead, his dear Melith ! 
'Tis thy— thy wife who 'bids ;— and yet not ; — Nay, 
'Tis Heaven's still might, that bows the hearts of kings 
'Tis meek kind Charity, who sees his wounds ; — 
A blessed angel, mourning at our side, 
And whispering to thy wife this prayer for him ! 
Shut not the gate upon these heavenly ones, 
Lest ill betide! And, oh ! the heartening thought 
Of having thus redeem'd a poor lost brother, — 
What healing cheer in all life's woe 'twill be ! — 
What gladdening, soul-uplifting thought to thee ! — 
Vol. Let wounds weep blood ; but woman's eyes in tears — 

Those watery drops unman me ! 
Ger. If I sent,— 

But then,— I do not know Disard so well. 
Mel. nay, my lord !— let not thy good will halt ! 
send, but send !— Behold me at thy feet ! 
When thy strong castles, — when yon holy church, — 
When the bright palaces in ruins mould, — 
When I, and thou, and all around are dust ;— 
Oh, then,^,s never-crumbling monument, 



21 

This good work yet above will bear thy name ; — 

Yet blessed stand rear'd in the Hall of Heaven ! 
Vol. Nay, Sainte Croix! At this— See her thus weep and kneel ! — 

What cold- cold- hearted man ! 
Ger. Well, Melith. But— 

Mel. Yet flits my lord ? Give not ill Nay to this !— 

Thou hast three props,— Gold, Kinsmen, and Good Works. 

But Gold forsakes thee when the death-king" nears ; 

For, nought more liking, it can give thee nought. 

Friends bear thee to the grave ; then turn away, 

And read thy will. But Good Works follow thee — 

Bise with thee to the blessed Throne of Heaven ; 

And, as fair angels, plead for mercy there ! 

be not hard, then ! Do one kind work more ; 

For never erring man had fitter time 

To prove his goodness ! Let it not go by ; 

For Heaven hath sent it thee, that thou may'st have 

Such pleader for thy sins ! 
Vol. Nay ! — Dear | soul !— My eyes — I 

But see him I — like a post there ! 

Thirdly. He modified this individual language to the 
temper, humour, or passion of the speaker. A hero, for 
instance, naturally lively, becoming from some cause anxious, 
afraid, or sorrowful, drops at once his quick, joyous anapaests, 
and sighs in sad spondees. We see this in the above extract, 
where Volmar, moved by the tears of Melitha, says, 

Let wounds | weep blood ; | but wo | man's eyes I in tears | — 
Those watery drops unman me ! 

Should the cause of the hero's anxiety be removed, should 
he accomplish some dear object, suddenly he changes accord- 
ingly to his general lively metre. We see Volmar doing this 
on the above occasion, after having gained his object: — 
Then, rise, I my good la | dy ! Leave ] the rest | to me. | 

But, better still, is this displayed in the part where Ercon 
returns home : — 

He sees from there his home : — Lo, now is nigh ! 
How blest to gaze once more on all around ! 
His heart | is so glad ! | and yet — It fears — But why ?— 
He rides as though his steed trode holy ground. 
c ♦ 



22 

We find here, amongst many spondees, a sudden anapaest, 
expressing the fluttering of the heart ; its youthful thoughts, 
afraid to rise amidst so many fears. These are well expressed 
by the slow, solemn march of the last line. 

My mother ! — Twelve long months from this dear spot ! 
My sister !— Heaven ! That we but meet again ! — 
Still nought? — No blaze yet from yon lonely cot? — 
Ah, dread betidings may have been since then ! 

But his fears are in vain : he finds all well, when suddenly 
the Poet flies to the quick joyous : 

Oh ! What bliss, | after rov | ing alone, | 
To clasp j in our arms ! some dar | ling one! — | 
After | the storms | of the rag | ing main, | 
To greet | our friends | and home | again ! 

What was his happiness, east or west, 
To that which he finds in his mother's breast ! 
What are the sights of old glorious Rome 
To that of his own dear English home ! 

There is not a line in Ghilde Erconwold which has not thus 
been studiously suited to the character, emotion, and subject de- 
scribed. The consequence is that Hollingsworth, frequently in 
one page, rushes from one metre to the other — going from 
iambics to anapaests even in the same stanza. 

Fourthly. Metre, he contended, should be adapted to the 
subject or action described. He hated that cut-and-dried 
uniform style of all our poets, particularly of Pope and the 
French school, which describes a funeral and a wedding — a 
tempest and a calm — a raging battle and a gentle twilight — in 
the same one everlasting metre. He could not conceive how 
a warrior could mourn over his defeat and rejoice over his 
victory in the same four or five-feeted iambic verse; — how 
quivering Fear, wild Enthusiasm, deadened Despair, and flut- 
tering Joy, could all alike be bound apprentice to speak in 
stanzas of the same form — in lines of the same feet and length, 
cut and measured, as it were, by the yard-stick. 

Striking out his own path in this, he has left us a work 
which is a perfect Dictionary of metres. No poem in any Ian- 



23 

guage contains such a variety. Some forms of stanzas are of 
his own creating; — some are of old masters; — some, of foreign 
origin, never before attempted in our language. Just as the 
" subject-theme may gang," he goes from the heroic to the 
ballad ; from the ballad, or lyric, to the heroic, or to the blank 
verse. 

We have here, for instance, in solemn blank verse, the de- 
scription of the interior of the chapel in a monastery : 
" 'lis spring of day. A lamp, on gilden desk, 

Burns yet within the chapel of the monks, — 

Is glimmering' o'er a bright illumined book : 

Where pale grave Wilfrid, pondering deeply, reads. 

A]l is so still in solemn twilight-gloom ; — 

So light, albeit, that thou may'st faintly see 

The Virgin's image near a high gilt cross ; 

Where that of dying blessed Jesus hangs." 

Here young Ercon enters, and is lectured by the old monk, 
in his own metrical language ; for what has the metre selected 
by the Poet for the description of the chapel to do with that 
chosen by the monk for moralizing ? In other words, by what 
poetical law is the monk bound to continue this blank verse 
of the Poet ? He prefers his own metre, and says, 

Trust not spring's ice ; nor lurking snake at rest ; 

Nor new-sown field ; nor words,— least, wavering girl's : 

For fickleness dwells in her lily breast ; 

And woman's heart is like the wheel that whirls. 

Trust not to wealth ; — oft scatter'd in a day ! 

What hast thou when the golden bird is fled ? 

Flocks, friends, — all die ; thou too must soon away : 

But one thing lives — the Doom upon the Dead. 

In the next chapter we have the bright sunny morning 
described, and have therefore a lively metre : — 

Where is Erc ? — 'Tis growing late : 
Earth's great gladdener higher shines. 
Look now at yon arched gate, 
Where the honey-suckle twines : 
Where a young horse, sheenly dight, 
Neighs so loud ; and paws to rim. 
See thereon our youthful knight 
Glittering in the morning-sun. 
C 2 



24 



Then again, in slow, sad metre, we have a battle-field covered 
with the slain, as seen by moonlight : — 

'Tis night. Now friend and foe sleep on that ground. 

O'er those cold ghastly cheeks, the moon-beams play : 

While lank wolves of the forest howl around ; 

And greedy ravens croak above their prey. 

Who thought at noon, -that, back of such fair day, 

Night lower'd so grim ! — that this could ever be, 

As on the sunny green they gamed so merrilie ! 

And then, in the next chapter, the merry-making at tl 
village is described in merry-making metre : — 

The tid | ings are come | to Hal | lentun ! 

Oh, eve | ry heart | is so fain ! 
Away | with our fears ! | The battl | e is won ! 

Old Eng I land lives I again ! 
Our old men, while their children play, 

Tell how times were and are : 
Their daughters dream of wedding-day ; 

Their sons, of glorious war. 
Glad ruddy farmers with their wives 

Sit round the village-inn ; 
While gleemen throw high balls and knives — 

Bear poles upon their chin. 

The same consistency everywhere prevails : — 

Now the terror-stricken Saxons, running, shout " They come ! they 

come !" 
Wailing women, wild, despairing, hurry aghast from babe and home 
Quaking monks, with cross and missal, fleeing, chant or say a praye 
All would shelter at yon castle, — find a home — they know not where-! 

Now see yon couch, where poor Melitha lies ; 

With kirtle rent ; loose torn, long, golden hair ; 

With cheek so white ; and tearless, soft, blue eyes 

Fixed on the ground in sad, cold, death-like stare. 

In this we see from the castle the victorious Normans 
marching rapidly towards us. But the Poet had to describe at 
the same time the dying, despairing Melitha. Each subject 
must have its becoming metre; for surely that which is 
suitable for a marching army must be quite unsuitable for a 
pining lady. All this must have cost him great labour. 



25 

Hear how mourning Melitha is joyfully surprised by the 
return of her lover : — 

I bade thee sing" away my care and fear ; 

But thou art more to gloom us than to cheer ; — 

Ha ! What | —What hor | ses ? It was | —Ha, hark ! | the drum ! 

The band J — Lo, hith | er — Good saints ! | They come ! | they come ! | 

'Tis my Er | coif! Heav | en ! Oh, tell | him— Away ! J away! 

The sudden leap here from sorrow to joy is executed in 
masterly manner. 

Who does not see the rough, swearing, bragging, exag- 
?rating old soldier in the following metre : — 

sEa.b,:l. Our English there were eighty thousand men I 
Indeed, my lord ? 

My blood ! I say but right ! — 
What glorious troop ! Saint Chad ! — I say again, — 
I tell thee, — On my troth, as worthy knight. 
As Halltun's earl, — Such was our glory then ! 
Yes, Erc, believe me, — Ninety thousand men ! 

Kormak, a kind of mad Swedenborgian seer, speaks a lan- 
guage which differs from that of any other character in the 
took : — 

What elvish mood, — what fifel bloody crime 
Makes thee to wander at this unked time ? — 
To walk the grey one's road like outlaw'd thrall ? — 
To come where spae- wives dwell, and ling-eels crawl? 
Love-blinking maid will make thee sorrow less. 
There's nought for thee in this drear unkedness. 

This language is as much his own as that of the witches in 
Macbeth is theirs. 

How much is described in — 
Now war-horses, clattering, gallop along ! 

Or in the following line, picturing an angry man — 
He, stamp | rag out ire, | goes, mut | tering, quick | to and fro. 

Or this— 

But fiery hasting Erconwold 

Stamps, — walks about, and strikes his head. 



26 

Here the metre is "ajar:" — 

Outlandish wonts have made them what they are. 
Since they | came home, | they've lived \ so ajar \ 
With all that is. 

Mark in the following the vesper-bell's constant recurrence : — 

Knows yon sweet bird the tale those lovers tell? 
It hears their whispers. All is lulling- still 
But tender bleating- lamb, or murmuring' rill ; 
Or humming- beetle, over- bubbling- well ; 
Far lowing- herd, 'mid peal of vesper-bell, 
That sounds from o'er the neig-hbouring- dell. 

Or here: — 

He heeds them not j— is bound with awful spell : — 
At home again ! — He sees dear Halltun-towers ; — 
Hears w?eZZ-loved Mersey purl ; — still Even's bell, — 
The same old bell he heard in childhood's hours. 

Notice in the following an army in rapid pursuit of another 
suddenly stopped : — 

Now begins a fearful rout. 

O'er the bridge the foemen hie ; 

While, with loud victorious shout, 

Following quick, our English fly. 
" Haiti" — On the bridge, lo ! Norway's ruler stands ; 
Waves boldly there his long sword, dripping gore ; — 
Full anger raging, calls his fleeing bands ; 
And will not let a Saxon o'er. 

The old monk leads the young hero from his Melitha, and 
cautions him against fostering an affection doomed to disap- 
pointment. The youth angrily replies : 

Away ! Thy swarthy mood 
Makes all the world as black as is thy hood ! — 
Angels to fiends ! It cannot— ne'er can be ! 
She loves me, monk !— she loves me ! Can'st not see ? 
Wilfrid. But, if ne'er thine, what would'st — 
Ercon. What would I say ! 

What would I say if God now shatter'd all 1 — 
Now dash'd to dust and atoms Earth's great ball ; — 
Brake down the world ; — let moons give up their race ; — 
Suns drop, and blazing fly through boundless space : 



27 

While lightning flash? d, deep thunder crash' d, 

And star with star and planet clash' d, 

Grim corses whirling I What — If all thus warring, 

And ever jarring, 
Through deathful endless space, flew on for aye ! — 
What would I say ? Tut 1 Tut ! Thou mak'st me mad ! 

(Exit.) 

We see and hear the world's destruction in this extraor- 
dinary passage. By imitative harmony, and a most skilful 
management of pause, he makes us thus behold the very 
movement and action described. 

To have written his long poem in the same stanza, in the 
same heroic iambic, in the same blank verse, — to have written 
all in one strain would have been comparatively easy. Prac- 
tice, at last, may make even the dullest blockhead perfect. 
To be ever new and varying requires not only invention and 
genius, but also constant study and labour. Hollingsworth, 
for this, gave up regularity of metre, and appeared in a different 
uniform on every occasion. By doing thus, he has given us> 
in metre at least, variety and invention— qualities in verse as 
rare as they are essential. 

Fifthly. As a skilful musician imitates all on his instrument, 
so does Hollingsworth in his verse. We hear in his battle- 
scenes the clash of weapons ; in his shipwreck, the roar of the 
tempest. We see the billows rise and fall. 

'Tis midnight ;— 0, how dark is all ! 
The ship begins to roll and leap ;— 
The rain, as gushing stream, to fall 
Into the black and yawning deep. 
How the high black billows make her ?*ise, 
Or dive deep, as they raging flow ! 
Now up, she seems to touch the skies; 
Now down again in the gulf below ! 
While foaming spray sweeps over the deck, 
Shivering each plank, or dashing to wreck ! 

Now dread thunder, peal on peal, 
Like a mighty god in ire, 



28 

Starts them ; — makes the proudest kneel, 
Brandishing his sword of fire ; — 
Strikes with awe and wild despair, 
Even the boldest-hearted there. 

• 

While in the alarm of battle : — 

With lightning-speed, 
Through the torch-lit road, flies the fiery steed, * 
Quick making the stones that it dashes o'er flash; 
As the weapons clash ; 

And the minster-Z>e?/, 

Through the echoing dell, 

'Mid the shouts and yell, 

Tolls loud its deep dread awful knell, 

Awakening all with quick start. 

The last line imitates the shudder of a man suddenly awoke 
by something terrible. 

Sixthly. Above all he insisted on condensed expression : 

An old saw taught— ('tis ever new 
By telling what is always true) — 
One little head so crack' 'd or mad 
Can make ten thousand more as bad. 

How condensed is the following : — 

What that one says, is, was, and aye must be ; — 
Earth never fed a greater rogue than he ! 
To grasp and crave ; to fawn, hate, wreak, and feast ; — 
If any do these well— it is a priest. 

To brevity he frequently sacrifices symmetry, smoothness, 
and harmony, particularly where he requires force and 
powerful emphasis. Strong emphasis he uses wherever he 
wishes to impress strongly some fact or point of his speech, or 
where he desires to create pathetic effect. This strong emphasis 
he attains sometimes by a triplet : — 

His life's great game is lost : its sweets are gall : 
His only glee is now to sneer at all. 
Full oft, with wounding gibe and laughing grin, 
He doles out truth ; — tears off the veil of sin : 
But never heeds if Good or "Evil win. 



29 

Sometimes by shortening the last line: — 

But what of this do mighty rulers ken ? 
Who slack the reins of kingdoms in their hold ; 
Then gamble with their poorer fellow-men, 
As dicers with their gold ! 

More in his mien, than in his words, is said : 
Which, as he drawls them, are as adder-stings. 
Heed not this evil one ; nor mind his spite, 
Or aught he ween in hate, to priests and kings. 
He is a laughing, waspish, sneering wight 
Who loves to say but bitter things. 

We walk thus through the palace or the gaol, 
To gladden suffering man. Now, for thy weal, 
I come to thee ; lest Hope, grown weary, fail. 
For into these sad homes where gloom and want 
Cast down the soul, the fiend delights to steal ; 
And work eternal bale. 

I hear and see them ; — see now all they wore. 
They seem not dead. 'Tis as if both were gone 
To far/ar land ;— will come ere long again : — 
Ah, never never more ! 

He spies the wounds of all to lay them bare ; 
And looks on nought, however good or fair, — 
On nought in this wide world, unless to find 
The bad that may be there. 

We see in the following examples particularly the strong 
effect of these short lines, when used at proper times : — 

It rises higher, having, on the right, 

A cliff whose peak would reach the silvering sky. 

Thence beetling huge out-bulging rocks of white 

Look down, and seem to fall. 

Yon wanderer underneath, now hurrying by, 

Hears startled eagle scream, and wild goat call. 

While, on the left, a frightful steep— 

A gulf too dread for human eye 

Yawns, endless deep. 

Wildness and roughness here suit the subject described. 



30 

Again, pourtraying the Norwegian ranks : — 

Now drawn up in a half-moon line, 

They see our English hurrying" on ; — 

Our standard wave, our armour shine, 

Bright glistening in the noon-day sun ; — 

See, back of all, so far, so far, 

A never-ending wave of war 

Come rolling on them : 

Yet, as high cliff on their dear strand 

Looks down on raging storm beneath, 

So they too stand; — 

So look on death. 

" Come rolling on them " has no rhyme ; for rhyme would 
have confined the idea expressed of that endless " wave of 
war ; " it would, too, have limited its flow : hence he leaves it to 
roll on wildly free. But where rhyme is required, there we 
have it very forcibly in : — ■ 

So they too stand; — 
So look on death. 

He produces strong emphasis in the last line of the follow- 
ing extract, not only by the triplet, but also by artistically 
balancing an anapaest by a trochee and a spondee. The pas- 
sage refers to Ercon in the dungeon. The priest informs 
him that he may walk abroad : — 

Priest. Thou canst rove out with them. 

Erc. Ah, thanks to thee ! 

But what were blooming fields around ? — 

What, fairest paradise to me? — 

What, all the world while thus I'm bound ?— 

Thus know, I breathe not free ? 

Clear lake were but as noisome stream ; 

Sweet flowery valley's hill would seem 

Like dungeon-wall of tyrant-foes ; 

While, wither'd, droop'd the full-blown rose ; 

And the mer | ry song | of free ones near 

Fell like | death-knell | o'er mourner's ear. 

Oh ! What can pang the lofty soul— 

So cast it down— as this dire thought? 

That man must walk by man's control ; — 



31 

* 

That Heaven's free breath is sold and bought ! 
As keen frost nips the bloomful tree, 
So this grim thoug'ht chills all in me ; 
Blighting \ each hope \ as it strives | to be ! 

In addition to what has been before stated, the beauty of the 
couplet must be apparent, " And the merry/' &c. : where, in 
the first line, we have the quick anapaest for the " merry 
song ; " and in the second line the falling death-knell in slow 
spondees, reminding us of the bell by its rhyme with " fell." 
If this line be pronounced slowly, its beauty will be evident. 

To judge from his MSS., the Poet seems to have been 
always afraid of having a word too much. Hence his 
roughness. It is wholly owing to his love of the epigram- 
matic ; — not arising from want of art, but from art itself — from 
art that appeared to him the most consummated. We never 
find this roughness, but where it is required to express what is 
rough, or as a natural result of great condensation. No man 
knew better than he how to attain smoothness. He had studied 
Grimm too well not to be thoroughly acquainted with this. We 
find him, where he desires to be smooth, to be sometimes so — 
almost to weakness. One of his rules for smoothness is, " Two 
mute consonants shall never clash : where, for instance, one 
word ends with a mute-consonant, the following must begin with 
a liquid or a vowel, or vice versa ; so that all the words in a 
line blend together, flow into one another, and thus become 
as one single word." This he calls in his papers, Fusion. 
Another of his rules is, " Exclude all Vandalic, hissing, 
whizzing, guttural sounds." We find smoothness particularly 
in the language of his heroines, in all his love-scenes, and 
wherever he deals with the tender, gentle, and feminine 
elements of poetry, as, for instance : — 

Ah ! What can still in me this anxious fear ! — 

This endless longing after all so dear ! — 

Ah ! all so nigh— in musing", ever seen ; 

Yet far as though wide oceans roll'd between ! 

These fetters grieve ; but hope and fear at strife — 

This pining, yearning love wears out my life ! 



32 

To thee, glad youth, the world's a blissful bower ;— 
Sweet valley where but thornless roses grow. 
How merrily thou whil'st away thine hour ! 
How brightly gleams life's crown upon thy brow ! 

may'st thou ever bide as glad as now ! 
Thy past be yesterday ; thy future, morn ! 
Ne'er know the real world to fret or scorn ! 

Erc. In loving thee, I break the worldly link 

That bound me down ;— feel now what angels think ! 
Ere, like a worm, I wallow'd on the sod ; — 
Saw thee, and, lo ! the cherub saw his God ! 
What bliss is love ! Can angels joy in more 1 
What ill elf would not let U3 meet before ? 

1 came — how often ! Thou wert aye so near ? 
Yet aye so far ? — thou than worlds more dear ! 

I wander'd hence ! — could leave my land to roam — 
Leave all I yearn'd to love so near my home ! 
Ha ! Thou wert fault, thou darling one, of this : 
Who didst not come, and bring me so much bliss ! 

Mel. Heart-stealer ! Teach cold Holcroft how to woo ; — 
And yet — teach not ; for then I'd love him too ! — 
So, lose my Erc ! How easy it would be 
To wed this eve if he were aught like thee ! 

Erc. Give me that little straying lock of hair : — 
Thou wilt not need it — thou wilt bide as fair ; 
But I shall take a greater conquest home 
Than ever mighty Csesar did to Rome. • 

Mel. What pretty flatterer ! — Ha ! Who rings so the bell ? 
My maid may tell.— Alas ! how soon farewell ! 
But, if thou love so, come another day ; — 
Tell father all. He'll be four nights away ! — 
A long long lonesome time to wait to know 
What makes my whole life's bliss, or whole life's woe ! 

Some critics, reading these passages, have pronounced him — 
Weak ; others, reading those in which he is as studiously 
condensed and vigorous, have called him — Rough. Such is 
the criticism of our age ! One critic contradicts the other ; 
for, if rough, he cannot be weak. Roughness is a concomitant 
of strength and vigour. These are produced by great con- 
densation only. Where this is, there must be few vowels, and 
many consonants; and, where there are many consonants, 



33 

there must be roughness. Great condensation and smoothness 
are therefore incompatible. What is smooth and soft, is 
always weak, — bordering on the wishy-washy. Where 
Hollingsworth required not to be smooth, he wished above all 
things to be condensed, i.e. vigorous. Hence his short lines 
after longer ones, — hence his irregularity. When three feet 
expressed all, was he bound to spin out the line to five ? — 
Was he bound to give it exactly " ten dull words," by adding 
four useless unmeaning particles? These words, as they 
constantly occur in the works of our best Poets, were to him 
like blank windows, made to fill up, put in for symmetry only. 
Surely, see-saw and ding-dong are not necessary elements of 
poetry ? We find Tennisonian regularity in his first uncorrected 
MSS. He would have saved himself a world of trouble by 
leaving them in this condition; and would then, moreover, 
have been regular and uniform. It was but by endless correcting 
and re-correcting, by great care, great study and labour, that 
he at last arrived at being— what his critics call — <( careless, 
slovenly, wild, rough, and irregular." Verily, a strange way 
to arrive at this result! Enough has now been quoted to 
show that there is in this so-called wildness or irregularity 
much method, system, and study. Condensation, easy as it 
may appear, is probably the most difficult of all attainments in 
composition. It cost the ancient Orators and Poets endless 
toil. It is in them one of those great excellences, to which 
they owe their immortality. Shakspeare, above all others, 
is condensed ; — never more so than where he is most sublime. 

See-saw regularity and uniformity are the most easily 
attained,— the most common of all things in versification. Any 
pot-house singer, any school-girl rhymer can give us these. 
They are not what Hollingsworth aimed at, and failed to 
attain ; but exactly what he, by correction, threw to the dogs, 
and most avoided. 

Seventhly. Simplicity of language he was most ambitious 
of attaining. Throughout his "Childe Erconwold" there is 
scarcely one single inverted phrase. Though he ridicules 
Wordsworth for his non-inversion theory, and proves that the 



34 

great Laker was unable to use his own tools, Hollingsworth 
strictly adheres to the " Laker's " rules in this respect. No 
word is twisted out of its grammatical sphere to make rhyme. 
His rhyme seems to come of itself— apparently quite by 
accident : 

Our sheen prank'd earls, our sceptred lord full thought 

And woe-foreboding" gloom, 
Slow follow Tostig's corse that it be brought 

To kingly tomb. 

To dote on one, yet doubt if that one be ; — 
To dread, — yet hope,— yet dread again,— what woe ! 
Too soon, dear maid, this sorrow- comes on thee ; 
But 'tis what all that love, must know. 

Gaze not on the well-known garden ! Seek not there thy Litha's bower ! 
Gaze not on the banner flying proudly from his hated tower ! ■ 
Look not at yon snowy kerchief, greeting, waved by darling hand ; 
Lest, forgetting all but her, thou turn again and leave thy band. 

He ne'er was gifted with the balmy speech, — 
The craft to soothe or heal the breast of woe 
(Which but kind Love in sorrow school'd can teach) ; 
Is, says the world, coldhearted, dull ? and slow ; — 
The grave of all he feels and all may know. 

What simplicity, with great condensation and vivid descrip- 
tion, have we in the following extracts : — 

He stoops ;— is lean ; has sleek black hair, 
Long hanging ; is outlandish dight :— 
Wears golden cap with raven-feather ; 
Short yellow cloak and tunic, bright 
But reckless hanging, loose, and wide; — 
Has long hose bandaged with red leather ; 
And dagger dangling at his side. 

What long white leer is under that black cowl ! 

He's sad-eyed Thought's poor happy willing slave. 

He ne'er was heard to laugh ; — likes more to scowl. 

Smiles light his cheek as sunbeams light a grave. 

Above his bookshelf is :— " What dost thou crave ? 
" Life with the Living Dead ?— If so, friend, stay ; 
" But, if with our Dead Living, go thy way ! " 



35 

His dice-mate is a gloomy fretful wight, 

With olive leer and rolling- eagle-eyes. 

He, ne'er at ease, leans every way but right ; — 

Now rubs his brow ; — now plays ; — now yawns and sighs. 

What gnaws his heart ? His mind-worm never dies. 

His worst of woes here is to think and be ; 

His hardest toil, to make slow Time to flee. 

We've some like him among our holy kin,— 
Great popes in little Romes— -'tis sad to see — 
Who bear such lording brow, high drawn-up chin ; 
Such love of might, such cold cold charitie ; 
Who rage if any take their C for G ; 
Or, with their meekness, love, and Christian glow, 
Are oft themselves the gods they'd have us know. 

See yon her fair white steed ; — her gold-locks fly 
O'er silk hood, glittering gemm'd, of welkin-dye ; — 
Her snowy kirtle ; — arms with shining rings ; — 
Yon orange-hued, gilt-purfled, long robe waving ; 
And silver whip in hand with golden strings. 

Erc. Who's he 1 

Stub,. My friend; — 

The genius of our day, to whom all bend ; 

The giant-mind that leads the gaping mass ; 

The human lion o'er the human ass ; 

With these extracts this critical examination may conclude. 

Such were the articles of Hollings worth's poetical creed as 
it regards style. We, then, arrive at these conclusions : — In- 
sufferable to him was all that had not the elasticity, the grace, 
the wave, and gentle flow of Nature. Art to him was — Imi- 
tation of Nature in her wildness. He revelled in her forests, 
not in her fashionable parks. He choose for a pegasus her wild 
steed, leaving her tamed neatly trimmed carriage-horse to 
Tennison and his school. He sought her roaring cataract, — 
not her bounded river and evenly-cut canal. He loved her 
daughter of the mountains and torrents, — not her painted 
affected artificial daughters resident in gilded saloons. In 
contempt of old established rules — in spite of his classical 
education - of all the models in his mind, ancient and modern, 



36 

native and foreign — Hollings worth burst the shackles with 
which Learning fetters Genius ; consulted at last this wild 
Nature only ; and, self-conscious and headstrong, went his 
own way. For this, of course, he has been lashed, but never 
understood, by our Newspaper Would-be-Johnsons. Origi- 
nality is criminal. As the elder " Disraeli " has most correctly 
said — " There is such a thing as Literary Fashion ; and prose 
and verse have been regulated by the same caprice that cuts 

our coats and cocks our hats Different times are 

regulated by different tastes. What makes a strong impression 
on the public at one time, ceases to interest it at another; an 
author who sacrifices to the prevailing humour of his day, has 
but little chance of being esteemed by posterity." How serious 
is this fact to the great poets, but how consoling to the 
little ones of this generation ! The same truth has been re- 
peated by this great father's greater son, Benjamin Disraeli — 
"Institutions ever survive their purpose, and customs go- 
vern us when their cause is extinct." Be a servile imitator, 
but never be guilty of doing what our Solomons have 
not seen done before. Yerily, it will be " utterly worth- 
less," " rubbish," i( trash," and so forth. Nor is this strange. 
Frail human nature hates your inventions. Do you not tell us 
by them that we all— we, the wise and great in our own sight, 
have so long been in the dark, and that you only have seen the 
light? Thus, where discoveries or new systems are understood, 
Pride and Envy are roused against them. Where they are 
not understood, you have a still worse antagonist in Ignorance, 
which ever arrogantly declaims against them. He who is not 
understood is ever condemned. 

Hollingsworth has been accused of carelessness ; but those 
who have seen his MSS. can testify that there is not a line in 
his works that was not frequently polished, corrected, and re- 
corrected. It is strange that the very passages which have 
been condemned as slovenly, are the very ones that cost him 
most labour. It has been objected to him that he was rough. 
But had he not a rough age to deal with ? He calls up the rude 
warriors of the Conqueror's time, dresses them in their ancient 



37 

garments, decks them with their peculiar ornaments and 
weapons, and gives them a language most like their native 
Anglo-Saxon. He has heen called irregular and wild. But 
are his heroes not of a wild age ? Did he not wish to show 
this fair land of ours as it was in those dark monkish times ; 
when this lovely England was a theatre of pillage and 
slaughter ; when the moans of the waves, dashing against her 
cliffs, were echoed by the screams of eagles and the groans 
from the battle-field ; when our blooming meads were black 
forests, where the ravens croaked and the wolves howled? Of 
such an age are his heroes : they must speak and act accord- 
ingly. He would have been more highly estimated, if he 
had been less studious, and artistic ? Our Scotch reviewers 
would have liked him better, if he had sworn by their 
authorities, and been introduced to the public by some of them- 
selves. Our English critics would have extolled him, if he 
had made King Harold and Tostig fine drawing-room 
gentlemen, chattering the slang 'of the day. Hollingsworth 
would then at least have been spared hi^ great labour;— have 
been better understood, and probably more popular. 

But he did nothing of the kind. He was the Poet of Nature, 
Nature in her universality. — Nature ere an artificial civiliza- 
tion had smothered the beautiful, and the true. 



APPENDIX. 



A few scraps from Hollingsworth's unpublished MSS. having 
appeared in Notes and Queries, it may, perhaps, be advisable to 
reprint them here. 

On the 24th of April, du»ing the present year, a Query was 
inserted regarding the derivation of the name of General Havelock. 
On the 22nd of May the following appeared : — 

GENERAL HAVELOCK. 

(2d S. v. 334.) 

On looking over some of the MS. papers of Alfred Johnstone 
Hollirigsworth, I camfr across the following passage in a small 
note-book. I send it you because it will probably furnish an 
answer to Mr. Charnock's Query respecting the derivation of 
the name of our great General. The Author, having given the 
origin of several English names, continues : — 

" I knew at school a lad named Havelock— a seldom name in England. 
It may have come from modern English. Why not ? It is the great 
fault of all antiquaries to look to bygone times for every thing. Were 
our learned philologists asked for the derivation of Humbug, they- would 

instinctively turn to their Latin, Greek, and Icelandic But 

there are names here (in Denmark) which remind me of my old school- 
fellow's. If of Danish origin, its derivation might be — 1st. From Have, 
a garden, and Lokke, an enclosed piece of meadow for feeding cattle or 
deer ; 2nd. From Hav, sea, and Log, a leek. But the most likely 
derivation is — 3rd. From the verb Have, to have, and Lykke, luck, 
fortune. The last syllable, ke, is in provincial Danish frequently mute. 
The Jutland peasant says, l A ' veed ik J for / Jeg veed ikke' (I know 
not). By a similar contraction, Danish Lykke has become English 
luck. Thus Have-lykke would have been pronounced Have-lyk, the y 
being sounded as French u, which, being so difficult to Englishmen, 
would soon have become English u. Hence we should have Haveluck, 






APPENDIX. 39 

which corrupted has become Havelock and Hasluck. Of the latter name 
there are not a few in England. So much for my schoolfellow Tom 
Havelock's name. It might thus have come from an old Danish surname 
which in heroic times graced some invincible Viking. Harold Have- 
lykke (Harold the Lucky) would not have been stranger than Harold 
Tveeskjaeg (Harold the Forkbearded), or Valdimar Atterdag (Valdimar 
Another-day). A curious book might be written on derivations of 
English names. Some day I think I shall try it." 

This philological Poet little knew when penning these remarks 
in his note-book, that he was scribbling down the derivation of a 
name which in a few years was to become so famous — a name 
to be immortalized, though not by a Viking, yet by a warrior 
whose deeds of daring might well entitle him to be called The 
Invincible, or The Lucky. Somewhat farfetched as this latter 
derivation may appear, it would doubtless be preferred to that 
suggested by Mr. Charnock. Had the great General known 
that his name betokened Have Luck, Have Fortune, might it not 
have strengthened, if not his confidence of success, at least that of 
his men, for soldiers and sailors 'see much in a name, being 
generally superstitious ? 

George Sexton. 



The Author of the present Essay, anxious to know whether a 
particular superstition referred to by Hollingsworth was at all 
common, sent the following Query, which appeared on May 15th : 

Folk Lore. — In Hollings worth's Chilcle Erconwold occurs the 
following : 

" Hast thou never read, 
When trees in calm air move, then speak the dead ?" 

Can any of the readers of Notes and Queries inform me 
whether this superstition is known in any part of England ? 

The Editor of Hollingsworth's Works. 

On June 5th, a gentleman, a native of Norway, replied as 
follows: — 

" When trees in calm air move, then speak the dead 7 1 (2d S. v. 
391.) — This verse in Hollingsworth's Childe Erconwold alludes to a 
superstition which in my native Norway and throughout Scandinavia 



40 APPENDIX. 

is very common. If it exists in England, it was probably first introduced 
by the Danish invaders. This is the more probable as I never heard of it 
in Germany. 

Having* answered this question, permit me to ask one. There is an 
allusion in the remarkable Memoirs of H 'oiling sworth to his unpublished 
poetical Anglo-Saxon MSS. Would their Editor, Dr. Sexton, inform 
me of the nature of them 1 Are they in the old Anglo-Saxon allitera- 
tion, or in modern metre with rhyme ? L. Sevbrin. 

This rendered necessary some explanations regarding Hollings- 
worth's unpublished MSS., the following poems were therefore 
sent, and appeared on July 3rd : — 

HOLLINGSWORTH's ANGLO-SAXON POEMS. 

(2ndS. v. 467.) 

In answer to the Query of Mr. Severin, as to whether the 
poems of Hollingsw r orth are in the old alliterative Beowulf style, 
or in modern metre with rhyme, permit me to say that this 
Poet has left many original works. One of these is a complete 
dramatic poem in blank verse, varied by modern metres with 
rhyme ; and others, translations of celebrated passages from the 
principal British Poe's. Amongst the latter he has brought 
before us Shakspeare's Richard soliloquising, — 

" Now is the winter of our discontent ; " 

Milton's Satan scoffing — 

" Is this the region, this the soil ; " 
and Byron sighing his " Fare thee well " in the language of 
the venerable Bede and Alfred the Great. 

Of these very singular MSS., which show the peculiar learning 
and genius of Hollingswrorth, I can give but a very imperfect idea 
by submitting the following two short original piece s. They are 
the first that have as yet been made public ; and should you be able 
to find room for them in your valuable periodical, they will 
probably interest some of your numerous Anglo-Saxon readers. 

George Sexton, 
Editor of Ilollmgswortlis Worhs. 



APPENDIX. 41 



To {jam Run- Gaste. 

" Ut of sawle deopan grunde, 
j?e J?ani wisan deagel is, 
RiinatS Gast on stillre stunde, 
Ymb sum bet're lif j>e J>is. 

Ac hwa mseg his riina reccan ?• 
Hwa his heolster-spraece rset 1 
A'nne beam he sylS ]>km wreccan :— 
Hine }>onn' on tweon for-lset. 

)?is se by$ j?e y watS cilde 
S6<S J?e wiss or-feorme sects :— 
Grimman men J?e leofatS wilde, 
Ymbe God and Heofen recfc ; — 

RiinatS him heah-Jjungen-fsege, 
J?a he get on heape li<S, 
Ymbe beah pe winnan msege ; — 
Rinc J?e he to beonne by <S. 

Deor ys lif; and wlitig, eortSe ; 
Wlite-torht, £>is swegel-weorc ! 
Manne ferhS — La ! Hu. un-weortSe ! 
Earm and wsedla, eng' and deorc ! 

Hwanon com ic ? Hwider fare ? 
Dysig jsonne ! Dysig nu ! 
Hwa, Gast, ah }?a sotSan lare — 
KihteJseretS biitan J?u ? 

Heofen-weard ic wende eagan ; — 
Wundrigende, swigend', stand' : 
]?onn', me JjinctS, ic hyr' \>e sagan : 
' Geondan ys j?Eet deore land ! ' 

Uppe ! Tsec men and on-orfca 
)?8et he seo his lytelnyss' ; 
Bile-hwit swa beam ge-weor$e ; 
Engel-god, and God-gewis ! '*' 



42 



APPENDIX. 
FOR-HWY SwiNCEST Jjf't ? 

" Hit swigung ys. Get swincende ic rece, 
Wis dimmum leohte, wisan dyrnan steef ; 
And ana, blac, mid Nihte Grimmum, wsecce : 
J?a still' ys eall swa grsef. 

Hwy swine' '? Hit nys for woruld-gilp and are, 
Jjset ic of-gife eall swa ofcrum swses : 
Ic wat £8et eom : Jjurh world ne w T eor$' ic mare,- 
9 Jjurh world, naht nsefre lses ! 

Her scolu ys : a uton bliSe grene : 
p2ev mot se besta J?egen selost buan ; 
Him eall ys swetost, faegrost J^ser, ic wene ; 
Ne naht ma dyrne run. 

J?es leen-dseg swine -full ys : get fint man reste 
J?a weorc wel don ys ; )?am heo swetost by$ 
>e worthe msest, and Hearran willan lseste ; 
J>eah plega w r sere y<S. 

Her eom ic scealc ; — wees hider send on asrend' ; 
And glenge jjses Hlafordes deoran gim : 
Ic swine' )?8et, j?a he Jjone wille weran, 
Ne beo ne ful ne dim." 



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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION. 

"The Poetry of this mysterious Author is extremely forcible and 
energetic, abounding in satire, but full of intense thought : each line con- 
tains food for the imagination, and the rythm is bold and dramatic. We 
are indebted to Mr. E. Meliadew for the handsome and superior style 
in which this production is set before the public, who will no doubt 
appreciate it as it deserves." — Observer. 

" The finest passages are those between Ercon and Melitha, where the 
thorough appreciation of a loving girl's tenderness is exquisitely pour- 
trayed."— John Bull. 

"The book will excite a strong feeling of interest. We have indicated, 
but by no means expressed, its painful character." — Examiner. 

" The Poems are products of a genius of very high order. The life pre- 
fixed, from the pen of the clergyman who was the author's tutor, narrates 
a history scarcely equalled in the pages of romance." — Morning Post 

" The memoir will be read with interest, as it gives the outlines of a 
strange and sad little tragedy of true life." — Literary Gazette. 



HOLLTNGSWORTH'S WORKS 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE SECOND EDITION. 

" Here we are introduced to a Poet, who two years ago was entirely unknown 
Consummate critics then would have considered it far below their dignity and the 
proper inflexibility of their calling to admit the name of Hollingsworth for a 
moment into their acquaintance. Your thorough hack critic busies not himself 
with the struggles of the young, or the soaring hopes of the endowed unknown. 
To Dr. Sexton we are therefore considerably beholden : he first stood sponsor for 
the name of Hollingsworth, and the same sympathy has watched its rise, till it 
needs no watching more. Dr. Sexton has admirably discharged his self-imposed 
editorial responsibilities. Childe Erconwold is in many respects a Poem of 
sustained excellence. It 's ten thousand pities that we none of us know more 
of Hollingsworth : the encouragement that we, as a nation, give to the most 
indifferent verse, is nothing short of disastrous to the reputation of sterling 
isolated merit. 

"We can quite understand that Childe Erconwold when it first appeared 
should have received, as deserved, the high commendation of some of the leading 
critics of the day. The Poem is by no means an ordinary conception. There is 
so much that is fresh and heartfelt in the inspiration, that we cannot refrain an 
expression of regret that such hopeful excellence never reached maturity. We 
go entirely with Dr. Sexton in his denunciation of the ' ranting-wordy spasmo- 
dics' of the age. So well pleased are we with our introduction to Alfred John- 
stone Hollingsworth, and so highly do we think of his genius as a Poet, that 
we shall invite our readers to taste the inspiration that has so delighted us. 
There is life here in every line : — 

* * * * * , 

" Our quotations have lead us somewhat beyond our usual limits ; but there is 
so much real excellence in the.Poems before us, so much excellence that should be 
known, that, in justice to the Author and in justice to a conscientious Editor, we 
gladly here record our tribute of unmeasured praise."— Constitutional Pi-ps? 
July 31, 1858. 

" This is a very extraordinary book. It is the production of a person equally 
extraordinary, whether we consider his birth, his fortunes, or his death "•— 
Weekly Times, July 18, 1858. 



" It is not at all surprising that a second edition of these Poems should be 
called for, and it is gratifying to find it presented in a form so worthy of the 
subject. The volume is beautifully printed on fine vellum paper. The fine bold 
expressive Saxon in which the Author delighted to indulge, forms a strong 
contrast to the mass of namby-pamby Poetry with which the public is too 
frequently of late years inundated." — Morning Post, August 5, 1858. 

C. J. SKEET, 10 KING WILLIAM STREET, CHARING CROSS, W.C. 



WORKS BY Dr. SEXTON. 

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THE 

CURIOSITIES AND MYSTERIES 

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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

" We place this little volume in the department of science ; but it is quite as 
amusing as instructive. It is rather a history of Beards, than the Physiology 
of the Skin and Hair. The Lecture on the Diseases of the Skin is a popular 
Treatise on an important topic, so handled as to be intelligible to the general 
reader, and much useful knowledge may be gathered from it." — The Critic. 

" This is an amusing little book, describing with much humorous vivacity the 
mode in which nations have worn the Hair and Beard from the earliest ages. 
It is a fruitful theme, from which grave experince might be drawn. Dr. Sexton 
writes in the gayer style, not without occasionally indulging in sober reflection." — 
Morning Chronicle. 

"An amusing and instructive little work, written in a popular style, containing 
some excellent suggestions as to the Treatment of the Skin, Hair, &c, accounting 
for baldness, greyness, and other premature symptoms of age." — Reynolds's 
Netvspaper. 

" With the Cutaneous Lecture, not being medically disposed for the moment, 
we will have nothing to do, howsoever we be tempted by the insidious motto 
from ' Othello ' on the title-page. Healthy Hair and a.beautiful Beard, whether 
black or blue, however, are a less morbid subject. Though Mrs. Crossland has 
fastened on them as pegs on which spiritual mysteries may be hung, we will not 
be enticed into dreaming ; but accepting carrotty locks as a red fact, ebon tresses 
as a part of the poet's practicable stock in trade, and beards and moustaches as 
prefiguring (it has been complained) predatory and ferocious personages, let us 
see how our lecturer dresses his subject— with what manner of unguents, razors, 
and curling-tongs he approaches Samson's strength and Godiva's veil, and the 
fantastic charm of u Golden Locks" in the fairy tale. Dr. Sexton is at once 
scientific, impulsive, partisan, and traditional. He begins with enumerating 
national arrangements of the Hair — such as the Chinaman's tail and the 
Papuan's wire cage— the moustache dear to Shakspeare — the collier a la Grec, 
by the aid of which Mrs. Trollope's Major Allen subdued that florid Dalila, the 
Widow Barnaby. After this Dr. Sexton proceeds to tell us the rate at which 
the Hair grows. ' Most shaving men,' says he, ' aged eighty, must have mown 
down twenty-seven feet of Beard during their lives, almost enough to stuff a 
mattress. Thirdly, he gives us statistics of black, brown, auburn, and lint-white 
heads, numbering how maM|r hairs pate and poll can carry. The blonde, being 
the finest, is stated to be the thickest crop. Next we have the anatomical 
structure, and from that sweep on to the poets. Our lecturer has clearly his 
prepossessions, not to say prejudices — eschews the raven, endures the nut-brown, 
revels in the golden; in this sympathizing with the *• Biondina' of Venice, who 
was wont, in the days of Palma and Titian, to bleach the dark dye of Nature out 
of her hair, so as to make her coronal fair and fashionable. After this we find 
ourselves engaged in an onslaught on the hair-dressing tribe, 'with all their 
trumpery;' deep in the difficult questions of powder, pomatum, washes, &c. ; and 
called on to study that ill-understood phenomenon, grey hair — a wintry sign, 
as dear to the poets as the veriest armful of golden tresses which fell heavy on 
the shoulders of Neo?ra. — Athenaeum. 

LONDON : JAMES GILBERT, 49, PATERNOSTER ROW. 



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the receipt of twelve stamps. 



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the body nor clouds the intellect, and that most of the statements mad^ 
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" Dr. Sexton's Lectures on the great Tobacco Controversy are full of 
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" If any of our readers are desirous of fortifying' their minds against 
the errors, imposture, fanaticism, and imposition, of these so-called 
Latter- Day Saints, we recommend to their careful perusal the little work 
before us." — Weekly Banner. 

" The book of Dr. Sexton is written in a fair and open spirit, and the 
sketch of the celebrated Joseph Smith and his biblical plates of gold is 
done in a vigorous and manly style. — The Pioneer. 



Sent post free from the Author, 8, Broughton Place, Hackney Road, N.E., 
on the receipt of stamps. 



WORKS BY Dr. SEXTON. 

In stiff covers, price One Shilling, 

THE LUNGS 

IN HEALTH AND DISEASE, 

OR 

THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF THE AFFECTION OF 
THE CHEST. 

Price One Shilling, 

LECTURES ON PHYSIOLOGY. 

No. 1.— DIGESTION. 

Price One Shilling, 
AN ANATOMICAL VIEW 

OF THE QUESTION OF 

MEN WITH TAILS; 

WITH ENGRAVING OF THE NIAM NIAMS. 

Price Twopence, 
THE 

BENEFITS AND BEAUTIES OE SCIENCE ! 

A LECTURE. 

• 

Price Twopence, 

ALPHABET OF PHRENOLOGY. 

All the above works sent post free (on the receipt of stamps) direct from 
the Author, 8, Broughton Place, Hackney Road, N.E. 



• 






HOLLINGSW 



MODEM POETRY.^ 



A CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY 




ESSAY. 



GEORGE SEXTON, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.G.S., F.E.S., &c, 



EDITOR OF IIOLLINGSWORTH'S WORKS. 



** Pictoribus atque poetis 
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit eequa potestas." 

" Authors are partial to their wit 'tis true, 
But are not Critics to their judgment too?"— Pope. 

11 There is such a thing as literary fashion, and prose and verse have 
been regulated by the same caprice that cuts our coats and cocks our 
hats.' 7 — Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature. 



LONDON: 

WILLIAM FREEMAN, 3 QUEEN'S HEAD PASSAGE, 

PATERNOSTER ROW. 



1858. 



&*•- 



Price One Shilling and Sixpence. 




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